With the proliferation of terrorism and contraband trade, there exists an imminent need for systems that can effectively and efficiently screen cars, buses, larger vehicles and cargo to detect suspicious threats and illegal substances.
In the past, many technologies have been assessed for use in security inspection, and often X-ray imaging has been identified as a reasonable technique for such purposes. Several known X-ray scanning systems have been deployed for screening cars, buses and other vehicles. Such systems include transmission and backscatter X-ray screening systems. These prior art X-ray systems provide scanning from a very limited number of orientations, typically one and potentially two. For example, a transmission X-ray system may be configured in a side-shooter or top-shooter configuration. Backscatter systems may be available in single sided or, occasionally, in a three sided configuration.
Accordingly, there is need in the prior art for a multi-view imaging system which can have an arbitrary number of views, and typically more than one. There is also need in the art for a modular multi-view system that results in high detection performance at very low dose using a combination of backscatter and transmission imaging methodologies.